History

In 1856, the Marietta
and Cincinnati Railroad (M&C) was pushing through
southeastern Ohio to reach Cincinnati. William Cutler, the owner of the fledgling
railroad, was having financial problems and was looking to
streamline and conserve money while building the railroad.

A man named Samuel Coe convinced Cutler
to build the railroad on his large property for free, in exchange
for a favor. The railroad would be routed through Coe's land in
order to haul coal and clay off of his property. This move saved
the railroad a great deal by reducing the amount of distance to
Cincinnati.

Several coal mines sprang up, and it was found that there was a
rich supply of it in the immediate area. Soon the mining town of
Moonville was born.

Moonville never was a big town, with a peak population in the 1870s
of a little over a hundred. It is thought to be named for a man
named Moon who once operated a store in the town. The town was
isolated in the woods and far away from any other towns; people had
to walk the tracks to get from there to the nearest towns of Hope
or Mineral. Vinton County is currently the least populated and most
heavily forested county in Ohio; in those days it was even more
wild and inhospitable.

Walking the tracks was incredibly dangerous, and was made even more
hazardous by two long trestles in the area
and the long Moonville tunnel. One trestle stood over Raccoon Creek less than away from the tunnel
mouth. It is estimated that by 1920 alone, 5 or 6 people lost their
lives on the bridges or within the tunnel. The last fatality was in
1986, when a 10 year old girl was struck by a CSX locomotive on that trestle directly in front of the
tunnel.

In 1887 the M&C was bought out by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
(B&O). It quickly became part of a vital line from
St.
Louis to Washington,
DC. Train traffic increased dramatically, while
the town entered a decline from which it never recovered. By the
turn of the century the coal mines slowly started to be used up and
closed down. The last family left town in 1947; by then the town
itself was abandoned. By the 1960s all the buildings were gone and
there was little to mark the site, other than the town cemetery and
the tunnel.

The legends

The abandoned tunnel has been the site of many ghost
sightings.

Several different ghosts are said to haunt the tunnel. The more
famous is the "headless conductor", who is said to appear headless,
wearing a railroad uniform, and carrying a lantern. Various reports
claim that a railroad worker was killed near the tunnel. One
popular account claims that a conductor was having an affair with
an engineer's wife. The jealous engineer stopped the train and
asked the conductor to check a brake line in the undercarriage.
When the engineer saw that the conductor was under the train, he
goosed the throttle, lurching the train forward, killing him. A
less romanticized version is that of a brakeman falling from the
train, a fairly common accident at the time. Sightings of this
ghost date back to the 1890s.

Another ghost is thought to be that of a miner who was struck by a
train in the 1920s. The story is that he was heading home through
the tunnel after a long night of drinking moonshine and playing
poker. When a train approached he waved a lantern in a futile
attempt to get it to stop. This ghost is described as a very tall
black man wearing miner's garb and carrying a lantern. According to
at least one account, the ghost is that of
Rastus Dexter.

Another version of this story claims that the town of Moonville was
in the grip of a smallpox plague and the
town was in dire need of supplies. The ghost was that of a man who
tried to save the town by heroically attempting to wave down a
passing train that was ordered not to stop at the quarantined town.
Unfortunately he couldn't stop the train and was run over, and the
town succumbed to smallpox. This story is purely based in myth and
never occurred.

A third ghost is said to have appeared to hikers, a middle-aged
woman dressed in white. She is thought to be the spirit of a woman
killed on the trestle in 1905.

There are two other noted fatalities that took place around the
tunnel that are worth mentioning:One had to do with a man who
became embroiled in a conflict at a local saloon. He apparently was
followed home along the tracks and bushwhacked by his attackers,
then left to die on the tracks very close to the tunnel. He was
found in the morning run over by several trains.

Probably the most bizarre story is a freak accident that cost yet
another young man his life. The man (Charles Ferguson [282466]) in his late 20s waited patiently for a train
to pass before crossing the tracks. He preceded to cross only to be
hit by the second half of the train which had somehow become
uncoupled from the first half. This took place between the trestle
bridge and the tunnel.

There has also been reports of heavy satanic cult activity in the
Old Cemetery.

Railroad
workers called the line the most lonesome, desolate eight miles (13
km) of track between Parkersburg, West Virginia and St. Louis. They hated the area because
it was isolated and trains seemed to show up without warning. The
line was "dark" (unsignaled) between Parkersburg and Cincinnati,
and traffic was governed by train
orders.

In 1981, a signal was erected at Moonville. The railroad said that
if a railroad worker needed to stop a train, they had to use this
signal, not a flashlight or lantern. Engineers and conductors were
ordered not to go into emergency unless the signal was red. All of
these measures were put in place specifically for this area because
of the numerous and unpredictable ghost sightings that had forced
many trains over the years into emergency.

In June
1985, CSX announced that the line between
Cumberland,
Maryland and Cincinnati would be reduced to secondary
status, and the last scheduled freight train passed through
Moonville in August. Trains continued to run until the line
was abandoned and the rails pulled up in 1988. The area remains
accessible and the old roadbed provides access to the tunnel. Plans
to turn the area into a formal rail trail
are in the works. Six and a half miles of trail are currently open,
with nine and a half miles, plus twelve bridges, still
needed.